EU: Trade with China Trumps Freedom for Hong Kong
by Soeren Kern • June 2, 2020 at 5:00 am
The British government announced that it was considering granting citizenship to the nearly three million residents of Hong Kong. The move infuriated China, which fears a massive brain drain from Hong Kong that would jeopardize the city's role as a global financial and trading hub.
Germany, which takes over the six-month rotating EU presidency on July 1, has announced that it will prioritize relations with China. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is particularly determined to proceed with a major EU-China summit to be held in the German city of Leipzig in September. She is reportedly under intense pressure from German automobile manufacturers, who are concerned about maintaining their access to the Chinese market.
"Europe can and should respond more forcefully than it has so far.... [If Germany cancelled] its looming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Leipzig in September 2020 unless Beijing withdraws its national security legislation.... That would send a strong signal that it will not be business as usual..." — Noah Barkin, a senior fellow in Berlin at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
"German Chancellor Merkel does not seem to fully appreciate how continued Communist Party rule endangers peace, security and public health, not just in China, but around the world." — Andreas Fulda, a senior fellow at the University of Nottingham's Asia Research Institute.
"The European Union... has the choice. Should we make a pact with an authoritarian regime or should we work to strengthen a community of free, constitutionally governed market economies with liberal societies? It is remarkable that German politics, with its love of moralizing, seems to throw its values out the window when dealing with China.... If current... policy on China continues, this will lead to a gradual decoupling from America and a step-by-step infiltration and subjugation by China. Economic dependence will only be the first step. Political influence will follow. In the end, it is quite simple. What kind of future do we want for Europe? An alliance with an imperfect democracy or with a perfect dictatorship? It should be an easy decision for us to make. It is about more than just money. It is about our freedom..." — Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, Europe's largest publishing company.
The European Union has issued a predictably weak and equivocal declaration on China's growing interference in Hong Kong. European leaders, apparently fearful of retaliation by Beijing, have signaled that economic interests will take priority over the EU's much-trumpeted founding values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Europe's continued appeasement of China indicates that the EU will be a weak link in efforts by Western democracies to confront the leadership in Beijing.
On May 29, the foreign ministers of EU member states met by video conference to discuss a common European response to China's plans to impose a sweeping law that would ban all activities in Hong Kong that are deemed to endanger China's national security.
Pro-democracy activists and lawmakers say the law, aimed at crushing political dissent, would effectively end the autonomy the city enjoys from Beijing under the "One Country, Two Systems" arrangement.
